SPQR III: The Sacrilege Read online

  “I’ll speak to him,” I said, “but I don’t think you’ll have much luck. He still thinks the Marian reforms are an outrage. How much per shield?”

  “Fifty-five denarii for the legionary model, thirty for the auxiliary.”

  “That seems steep,” I said.

  “We’re not talking about shoddy materials here, sir. We are talking about first-rate plywood made of seasoned limewood strips and Egyptian glue, backed with the finest felt and faced with rawhide; and on top of that, seasoned bullhide bleached almost white so as to take whatever dye or paint the legion wants to add. Ironmongery of the finest workmanship, sir: boss, rivets and grips and a complete bronze rim. Now tell me that’s not worth fifty-five denarii.”

  “I won’t argue the details of your trade,” I said. “How does the auxiliary version differ?”

  “Identical except the cover is plain brown cowhide and the rim is stitched rawhide instead of bronze. Just between you and me, it’s as good a shield, but we both know that the legions will revolt if they see the auxiliaries getting gear as pretty as the legions have.”

  “That is true,” I agreed.

  “I’ll tell you what: I’ll drop the price twenty denarii if they offer the old shields in trade. I can sell those to the Egyptians. But I want the right to refuse any that are too cut up for resale.”

  I promised to do what I could, and he let me know that he would be not only grateful but generous. As it turned out, the legions tried out the new design and liked it, but they didn’t buy new shields. They just cut the tops and bottoms off the old ones. There were few fools among the military purchasing officers.

  After this encounter I went to a stall and bought a light lunch of sausage, fried onions and chopped olives seasoned with pungent garum and wrapped in flat, unleavened bread. I was washing this down with a cup of watered wine when I saw something over the rim of my cup that made me pause.

  A few stalls down, someone was coming from one of the witches’ booths. It was a very young man, old enough to shave and wear the toga, but only by a matter of months. He seemed oddly familiar, yet I could not quite place him. He glanced from side to side guiltily as he emerged from the booth. He wore the red sandals with the ivory crescent at the ankle that only patricians could wear. This and some half-familiar cast to his countenance finally placed him for me: He was one of the little group surrounding Clodius that morning. He was, in fact, the one who had spoken and revealed himself to be young enough to think that a group of highborn women couldn’t be up to something really unsavory. This was too good an opportunity to miss. I walked over to him, taking care to approach him from behind.

  “Good day!” I said loudly. He all but jumped out of his toga as he spun around, white-faced. He cast a frantic glance toward the witch’s booth, clearly terrified that I might have seen him leaving it. I clapped him on the shoulder to show that I harbored no suspicions at all. “I saw you at Celer’s house this morning, but we weren’t introduced.”

  He looked faintly relieved. “I am Appius Claudius Nero,” he said, “and I know who you are, Senator Metellus.”

  I took his hand. “I am always glad to meet a new-made citizen. You must have donned the man’s toga while I was away in Gaul. Are you the son of the Appius Claudius who was legate to Lucullus in Asia?”

  “No, I am his cousin. His father and my grandfather were brothers.” That made the whelp second cousin to Clodius and Clodia. Clodius had changed his name from Claudius when he decided to become plebeian, and his sister had imitated him.

  “It’s good to see that our ancient patrician families still produce sturdy young men,” I said, beaming at him. One more Claudian was like one more rat as far as I was concerned, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt. Every century or so the Claudians produced a good man. The elder Appius was a decent sort. The fact that this one was consorting with Clodius was definitely not a mark in his favor.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I—I do not wish to be rude, sir, but I have an—an appointment and I must hurry,” he stammered nervously. “I must go.”

  “By all means,” I said, “don’t let me detain you. And you must call on me soon. I would like to become better acquainted.” I took his hand in both of mine and noticed that it was trembling. Then I noticed something decidedly odd: On the forefinger of his hand he wore a great, bulbous poison ring.

  I stared at his fear-stiffened back as he walked away. Why on earth was he wearing one of those? I suppose I should explain here. Back in those days poison rings were not really uncommon, but barbarians often think that we used them to poison our enemies. They fancy that the rings had spring-loaded lids to facilitate the surreptitious sprinkling of poison into an enemy’s cup. Actually, they were a means of quick suicide. The domed chamber was cunningly wrought as a seamless capsule filled with poison. There was no access to the poison save by breaking open the capsule. In times of civil strife, when picking the wrong faction could mean death, you saw them everywhere. They were rare in tranquil times. These were relatively tranquil times.

  I wore a poison ring myself from time to time. When you knew that at any moment a rampaging mob might break your door down, or your enemies were chasing you through the alleys, it was comforting to have a fast escape. Just bite through the thin gold, suck out the poison, and you might avoid being tortured, or hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, or dragged on a hook into the Tiber.

  The boy was far too young to have serious enemies. Perhaps, I thought, he was just trying to get a little drama into his life. It is the common practice of boys just come to manhood to do things like that: wear poison rings or conceal swords beneath their tunics or write dreadful poems. However, nothing remotely connected with Publius Clodius was too trifling to rouse my suspicions.

  The booth was typical of the sort: a flimsy construction of poles, roofed and walled with cheap, heavy cloth. Unlike the vendors’ booths, this one did not have a table out front for the display of wares. Instead, the front and sides were decorated with magical symbols: crescent moons, snakes, owls and the like. I pushed aside the curtain and ducked through the low doorway. The interior was full of baskets containing all manner of herbs, vials of scented oils and nameless articles, of interest solely to the practitioners of magic. In one rustling basket I saw a knot of writhing black snakes.

  “May I help you, sir?” The speaker was an absurdly ordinary-looking peasant woman. She might as well have been selling turnips in the produce market.

  “I am the Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger,” I said portentously. “I want to know what the noble youth who just left was doing here.”

  She looked me over. “Is there any reason I should talk about my clients to you?”

  “Your sort is forbidden within the city, you know,” I said.

  “The stripe’s on your tunic, not your toga,” she pointed out. By this she meant that I did not wear the purple-bordered toga praetexta and therefore plainly had no judicial power.

  “No, but my father is the Censor Metellus,” I said.

  “Is that so? I don’t follow political matters much. Well, if that’s the case, he’s the one I should be talking to, I suppose. Why don’t you fetch him here and we’ll sit down and have a little chat?”

  “Woman, you try my patience. Don’t you know how to show the proper respect to a Senator?”

  She looked at me pityingly. “Now, sir, you know perfectly well a Senator’s just a citizen with a purple stripe on his tunic. If you only knew how many Senators come to me wanting a poison to get rid of their wives, or an abortion for a slave girl, and me just a poor, honest fortune-teller and herbalist. The wives come, too, because the noble husband’s been away all year and they’re going to have a baby that’ll come out looking just like the Gallic stableboy. You’d be shocked at what your peers get up to, sir.” Unfortunately, I would not be a bit shocked.

  “And you, of course, would have nothing to do with such things?”

  “I should hope not!” She made a
number of gestures against the evil eye and other supernatural misfortunes. “I read the signs and give advice. Come to me with a cold or a hangover and I’ll mix you up a potion to relieve your suffering, but don’t ask me to do anything illegal.”

  Well, I could scarcely expect her to admit selling poisons for purposes other than suicide, since the punishment was a horrible death.

  “Fortune-telling is illegal,” I pointed out.

  “Well, there’s lawbreaking that gets you run out of town and there’s lawbreaking that gets you nailed to a cross. It’s that last kind that I call illegal.”

  “I am going to stay here until you tell me what that boy was doing here. Then what will you do for customers?”

  She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Oh, sir! Wasn’t you ever that young? Didn’t you always go running to a fortuneteller every time your heart went thump over some neighbor’s pimply daughter? Lovesick boys outnumber embarrassed Senators any day.”

  “Very well,” I said, “I will accept that for now, but I may be back. What is your name?”

  “Purpurea, sir. You’ll find me here most days.”

  I left fuming. Sometimes I envy Asiatic nobles, whose inferiors have to grovel in the dirt before them and lick their toes. Purpurea! When women get to make up their own names, they come up with some strange ones. And her pose of innocence did not impress me. In my lifetime I have known thousands of criminals, and the best of them could make a newborn infant seem a veritable monster by comparison. One thing was certain: That boy had been afraid to be seen emerging from her booth.

  If you seek any prominent Roman at midday, it is usually futile to look for him at home. Your best bet is to go to the Forum and wander around until you bump into him. That was how I found Milo. He stood near the Temple of Castor and Pollux, surrounded by a group of tough-looking men, most of them dressed in dark tunics. He was the only one who bothered with a toga. He grinned his great, white-toothed grin when he saw me.

  We had been friends for years, a thing most of my peers thought disgraceful. He was the most powerful gang leader in Rome, with Clodius as his only rival. He was a huge man, still young and extraordinarily handsome. He had been a rower in his younger years and was as strong as any professional gladiator or wrestler. We exchanged the usual embraces and greetings and he invited me to his house, where we could talk privily.

  The minor fortress Milo called home occupied a whole block in one of the better slums. It was fully staffed with street fighters, many of them veterans of the legions or the arena. We sat at a table in Milo’s enormous assembly room, and one of his men brought us watered wine. Milo was never one for the amenities, so I launched straight into the matter at hand.

  “Milo, why is Clodius still in Rome?”

  “His presence has not escaped me,” Milo said. “Nor has the fact that Caesar shows an uncharacteristic fondness for our city when his fortunes are to be mended elsewhere.”

  “Caius Julius doesn’t amount to much,” I said.

  “Not yet, but keep your eye on him. And Clodius is Caesar’s man.”

  I remembered the odd tableau that morning. “You think it’s connected?”

  “I know that Clodius does very little these days without Caesar’s permission.”

  My cup paused halfway to my lips. “That’s new. Were some new lines drawn while I was away?”

  “The lines are much the same as always, but the number of players in this game has narrowed. There used to be many gangs controlling the streets of Rome. Now there are just two: mine and Clodius’s. Once there was a large number of soldier-politicians and lawyer-politicians contending for mastery of Rome and its empire. Most have dropped out or been eliminated. Lucullus, Hortalus and the rest have left the big struggle for power.”

  “Hortalus is Censor with my father,” I pointed out.

  “An office with great prestige but no imperium. No, Decius Caecilius, the contenders are now Pompey, Crassus and Cicero, with Caesar soon to join them. See what he is like when he gets back from Spain.”

  “I trust your instincts,” I said. “So you say Clodius has become Caesar’s man. Celer tells me that you are now closely linked with Cicero.”

  “Cicero and I are not friends, but he needs me. The men who want to control the empire must be away from the city much of the time. They must have an ally to control the city in their absence, and there is no constitutional office for that purpose.”

  I always admired this quality in Milo. He knew the branchings of power as a farmer knows the branching of his grapevines. He knew which branches showed promise and which needed pruning. He was utterly untrammeled by the constitutional precedents and traditions that shaped the political thinking of more orthodox Romans.

  “What is Cicero’s standing these days with the Senate and the public in general?”

  “Precarious for the moment. He has his adherents, but his enemies charge that he was high-handed in executing the Catilinarian conspirators without trial. And many are resentful of his indifferent origins. They can’t accept the idea of a new man rising as Cicero has. Some are jealous of his new house on the Palatine. They’re charging that he embezzled public funds to build it.”

  “How do you read the situation?” I asked.

  “The Catilinarian scandal will fade in no great time. Nothing gets old as fast as yesterday’s scandal. Catilina never had any firm base among the powerful men of Rome. With Pompey coming back, all attention will be on him, and lately Cicero’s thrown his support behind Pompey.”

  “Cicero?” I said. “He was always with the anti-Pompeians before.”

  “But he understands the inevitable. Something has to be done to placate Pompey’s veterans. You know, when Pompey comes into the city for his triumph, it will be the first time in years that Pompey, Crassus and Caesar will all be in Rome at the same time.”

  “You see a connection?” I knew Milo wasn’t just musing aloud.

  “There’s a rumor floating around. Just a rumor, mind you, but there are those who say that Caesar can’t leave because of his debts. Some of those he owes money to are very highly placed.”

  “But if he can just get to Spain, he’ll enrich himself like any other bandit,” I said. “Then he can pay his debts.”

  “Or he may get killed. He has a reputation for recklessness. Remember those pirates?”

  It was a famous story. When he was quaestor, Caesar had been captured by pirates and held for ransom. He had behaved arrogantly and demanded that his ransom be appropriate to his rank. He had upbraided his captors, promised that he would return with a flotilla and crucify them all, and made them listen to his speeches. The pirates had been highly amused and treated him as a sort of mascot while he resided among them. In time his ransom arrived and he was sent on to the nearest Roman port. He immediately raised a flotilla, returned and crucified all the pirates exactly as he had said he would. It was the sort of tale that tickled the Roman fancy and made him a minor celebrity for a while.

  “So his creditors want some sort of security? What can he do? Caesar spends so freely he barely owns the clothes on his back. Pontifex Maximus is a fine old position, but it never made anyone a copper as that I ever heard of.”

  “There is a further rumor,” Milo said. “A loan. An enormous loan to stand surety for the bulk of his debts while he is away. All out of one man’s purse.”

  Now things began to make sense. “Crassus,” I said.

  “What other man in the world has that kind of money?”

  “Crassus is not a charitable man. He will want something in return for a loan like that. What can Caesar do for the likes of Marcus Licinius Crassus?”

  “That is something I would give a great deal to know,” Milo said.

  3

  The house of Mamercus Aemilius Capito was located in a beautiful district on the Aventine, with a fine view overlooking the Circus Maximus. As I walked up the hill I could smell the incense wafting from the nearby Temple of Ceres. Gazing across the valley, I
could see the magnificent new house of Lucullus. It had been under construction when I had last climbed the Aventine, and was said to be far and away the most magnificent dwelling in Rome, built with the spoil of Pontus and Asia. Lucullus was not as rich as Crassus, but whereas Crassus used his wealth to gain more money and power, Lucullus used his to indulge himself.

  The guests were already ranging themselves in the triclinium when I entered, and I took my place on one of the couches. Hermes took my sandals and stood behind my place, ready to serve me. I had ordered him to keep absolutely silent and observe closely. For a wonder, he obeyed.

  As was customary, Capito had invited a mixed company. He did, however, have more than the usual proportion of exceptionally distinguished guests, a sure sign of his political ambitions for the year to come. Occupying the place of greatest honor was Marcus Pupius Piso Frugi Calpurnianus, one of the Consuls of the year. Like his colleague Messala Niger, he was a timeserver of little importance. Like many such men, he insisted on using his whole great epic of a name instead of some shortened form. Men assured of their own greatness prefer to use a single name, as if they alone possessed it. Thus, we have Alexander, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus and, let us not forget, Caesar. Watch out for men who use a single name.

  At the other end of the head couch resided the pontifex Quintus Lutatius Catulus. Catulus was esteemed one of the greatest Romans of the day, but his star was setting like those of Hortalus and Lucullus as the ambitious military men gained ascendancy. Between Catulus and Piso was our host, Capito.

  At the table facing mine reclined Lucius Afranius, a man of some dignity and little importance, like Capito himself. He had served as praetor some years before. The other two at that table I no longer recall, so they could not have amounted to much. My companions on the third couch were an unusual pair. To my right, on the side of the head couch, was the poet Catullus, not to be confused with the great Catulus, who spelled his name with a single l. The poet had been mooning around Rome for a couple of years, cadging free meals and writing his verses. Friends of a literary bent assure me that these poems are rather good. Many of those he indited at this time were addressed to a hard-hearted woman of mystery called Lesbia. It was the opinion of most that Lesbia was actually Clodia, who had the requisite cruelty and love of poetry. He had lived in the house of Celer, but I rather doubt that he had been her lover, because he survived.